Massachusetts runs two completely different systems under one flag. Inland, almost everything is open every day of the year and the season exists only to change the daily limit. On the coast, the Division of Marine Fisheries publishes a table where anything not listed is closed, full stop.
Every season we have verified in Massachusetts
One block per rule, because a single species can be on two calendars in the same state depending on the water. The band under each heading is the legal season; the row under it is what our own data says the fish are doing.
Trout — Lakes, ponds and major rivers
January 1 to December 31, every year. Massachusetts does not close its stillwater trout fishing at all, which surprises anglers arriving from Vermont or New Hampshire where the ponds shut in October. The Housatonic mainstem is the exception: one fish a day at twenty inches, and catch-and-release stretches where nothing may be kept.
- Size
- No minimum.
- Limit
- 3 a day.
Trout — All other rivers and brooks
Also open every day of the year — what changes on September 11 is the limit, from eight trout a day down to three. Even in the generous window only three of the eight may come from lakes, ponds or major rivers, so the eight-fish figure is a stream limit rather than a state limit. Trout here means brook, brown, rainbow and tiger.
Trout — Quabbin Reservoir
The one real closed season in Massachusetts freshwater, and it is not set by MassWildlife at all — the Department of Conservation and Recreation runs it. The season "generally starts the third Saturday of April and ends after the third Saturday in October", and outside it the reservoir and its tributary streams within the Quabbin Reservation are closed to fishing entirely. Dates move with the weather, so the DCR guide is the last word.
- Limit
- Lake trout 2 a day at 18 inches.
Trout — Wachusett, Sudbury and West Waushacum
Also a DCR season rather than a MassWildlife one: it "generally starts the first Saturday in April and ends November 30", and the start can move with the ice. Shoreline fishing only between Gate 6 on Route 70 and Gate 36 on Route 110 at Wachusett.
- Limit
- Lake trout 3 a day.
Bass — Statewide freshwater
Open all year with no catch-and-release period, which is unusual for New England: Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and New Jersey all shut the cooler over the spawn and Massachusetts does not. Chain pickerel is five at fifteen inches, northern pike and tiger muskellunge one each at twenty-eight, all of them open every day of the year.
- Size
- 12 inches.
- Limit
- 5 a day for largemouth and smallmouth combined.
Walleye — Statewide freshwater
No closed season. Landlocked salmon runs to two a day at fifteen inches, also year-round. The species that cannot be kept at all are listed rather than seasoned: sturgeon of any kind, sea-run Atlantic salmon, burbot, bridle shiner, lake chub and four others must be released immediately — hook out or line cut, no photographs, no stringer.
- Size
- 14 inches.
- Limit
- 5 a day.
Tautog — Marine waters
Four windows and four limits, and the best of them is the last: five fish from October 15 to the end of the year, when the tautog feed hardest. January to March is closed outright. The one-over-twenty-one rule caps the trophy rather than the catch.
- Size
- 16 inches, and only one fish may exceed 21 inches.
Striped bass — Marine waters
No closed season and a narrow slot. DMF changed how striped bass are measured recently, which matters when the legal window is three inches wide. Weakfish is also year-round at one fish and sixteen inches.
- Size
- 28 inches to less than 31 inches.
- Limit
- 1 fish.
Black sea bass — Marine waters
Two windows, and the limit halves for the second. The DMF table carries a general note worth reading before any coastal trip here: "For any dates not listed in the Season column, the recreational fishery is closed." That is an unusually clean statement of principle, and it means the absence of a date is itself the rule.
- Size
- 16 inches.
Summer flounder — Marine waters
Shore anglers get an inch off the minimum, the same idea Connecticut applies to scup: keep the fishery reachable without a boat. Scup itself runs May 1 to December 31 at thirty fish, eleven inches from a vessel and nine and a half from shore.
- Size
- 17.5 inches from a vessel, 16.5 inches from shore.
- Limit
- 5 fish.
Trout — Cod and haddock, Gulf of Maine
Cod in the Western Gulf of Maine is down to a two-month season and a single fish; in Southern New England it is prohibited outright. Haddock runs eleven months at fifteen fish. Ocean pout, wolffish, windowpane flounder and river herring are all closed with possession prohibited — no season at all, at any point in the year.
- Size
- Cod 23 inches, haddock 17 inches in the Gulf of Maine.
Read on 2026-09-14 from MassWildlife and the Division of Marine Fisheries. Freshwater from the MassWildlife regulations page; saltwater from the Division of Marine Fisheries table, which DMF describes as an unofficial copy of 322 CMR and last updated April 28, 2026. Legal dates were read on the agency’s own page on the date shown beside each entry. Seasons change: the agency link is always the last word.
What the water is doing while the season is open
This is the part an agency page will not tell you. The temperature row above is the seasonal curve we use for the 4 of 14 Massachusetts waters we track on a northeast surf profile, and it is why an opening date and a fishable date are not the same thing. A season that opens while the water is still in the forties is a legal invitation, not a biological one: the fish are there, they are just not eating on your schedule yet. Cross the legal band against the activity row before you book the day off.
Where to fish it
We publish a daily report for 14 Massachusetts waters, each with live flow or tide and today's conditions.
- Cape Cod Canal — Barnstable County
- Plum Island — Essex County
- Stillwater River — Worcester County
- Quabbin Reservoir — Franklin County
- Deerfield River — Franklin County
- Swift River — Hampshire County
- Onota Lake — Berkshire County
- Webster Lake — Worcester County
- Buzzards Bay — Bristol County
- Merrimack River — Middlesex County
The licence is a separate question
An open season is not permission to fish. Check the state agency for the licence you need before you go.
Questions
When does fishing season open in Massachusetts?
It depends on the species: trout january 1 to december 31; trout april 1–september 10, september 11–march 31; trout april 18 to october 17. Every date on this page was read off MassWildlife / DMF on 2026-09-14.
Do I need a licence to fish in Massachusetts?
Yes. A Massachusetts fishing licence is required, and it is separate from the season: an open season is not permission to fish without one.
Are these Massachusetts dates going to change?
Some of them, and the page says which. Dates written as a rule in the regulations are calculated here for 2026, so they follow the rule rather than going stale. Dates the agency sets each year are shown as exactly that, with no calendar band, because inventing one would be worse than leaving it empty.